Scale Matters: Linking Biodiversity Pattern and Process in Exploited Marine Systems

The study of biodiversity in marine ecosystems is challenging because the oceans are vast and highly variable in space and time. Long-term data sets collected by management agencies are an excellent resource for researchers because they cover large areas and rely on standardized sampling, while worldwide statistics on catch and fisheries management provide the broadest scale view of ocean ecosystems. Research teams from three universities have used fisheries data sets from the Chesapeake Bay, US West coast, and broad scale ocean ecosystem summaries to explore the interactions among diverse metrics of biodiversity and fisheries, environmental drivers, and system productivity.  As in terrestrial ecosystems, our inferences from patterns of marine diversity and fisheries depend on biodiversity dimension (species richness, phylogenetic diversity, functional diversity) and scale. Our teams have made novel discoveries about the scale and variability of biodiversity “hot spots” and links between diversity patterns and environmental gradients such as depth and salinity. The intensity of human impacts is often correlated with system-level fish and invertebrate biodiversity, but the patterns are not always consistent in space and time. The teams have found that ecosystem productivity is a much stronger driver of fisheries yield (a key ecosystem service) than diversity at both the broadest (worldwide) and intermediate (west coast U.S.) scales. The broad range of expertise and skills of the collaborating DBDGS teams have enhanced our study of the relationships between biodiversity and the environment in marine systems, utilizing data sets that are normally applied to fisheries management. Our work will benefit efforts to move towards ecosystem-based management of our ocean resources.